Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Kipper calms the faithful


The last few weeks in Calgary have been taken up with a bit of hand wringing over what was wrong with the usually reliable Miikka Kiprusoff, the Flames last line of defence has had a rough start to the 2008-09 season as he and his team have seemed to struggle in the early going, with Kipper giving up far too many goals and the remainder of his team mates not scoring enough of their own for satisfactory results.

Tuesday night in Calgary provided some relief for those growing anxious, as Kiprusoff resembled the goaltender of Calgary legend, turning aside 30 shots, many of them on a rather extended Washington Capital power play as he led the Flames to a 2-1 victory.

Power plays would be the story of the night, first with Washington's nine minute man advantage situation in the first period, an advantage that they squandered away with only one shot on goal during the entire extended power play. Calgary circled their wagons and shut down the explosive Capital attack, limiting them to nothing of real danger.

With that bit of adversity out of the way, the Flames would eventually find that the power play pendulem swings both ways, as they were provided with four consecutive power play opportunities, eventually finding success on one of them to tie up the game at one a piece, Matthew Lombardi would score later in the second to secure the 2-1 win.

The victory by the Flames should go a fair bit of distance in getting them back on track, from taking on the long stretch of time short handed in the first with great success and then having their goaltender return to his outstanding form of the past, all was good for Flames fans on Tuesday.

It gives the Flames something positive to build on as they try to figure out the answer to their struggles of the first month of the season.
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Photo above from Globe and Mail website

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